Just in case

Abstract

MR RONALD BENGE, distinguished penseur, tutor in philosophy both classical and homespun, self‐confessed ‘lapsed librarian’ and ‘detached insider’ has written a book about himself—a point which it is desirable to state because not all autobiographies are in truth about their subjects—and since more or less everyone within his peripatetic physical and spiritual ambits has heard rumours for some years that this oeuvre was in progress, there will be general relief that it has now appeared in published form (Confessions of a lapsed librarian, Scarecrow Press 1984, $16; UK, Bailey Bros), so that we can all look up our own names in the index and, perhaps, elsewhere. (I may say at once that the index itself is a predictable short masterpiece of oblique priorities. I have an entry all to myself, as does Rudyard Kipling, but luminaries such as Edward Dudley, Frank Hogg and Philip Sewell appear only under the entry ‘Colleagues’, while others like Sergeant Bruce Copp aren't indexed at all, which is frightfully irritating because one would love to try to learn more about Ronald's near half‐century friendship with that delightful man other than by wading—in vain—through every word of the text with such an end in view.)